Budget 2023 debate: Janet Ang on challenges faced by businesses

Businesses have taken a more cautious outlook going into 2023, with the top challenges they face being overall business costs, availability of manpower and retention of manpower. Citing survey figures on this in Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 22), NMP Janet Ang said businesses welcome the extension of the Energy Efficiency Grant and Enterprise Financing Scheme till March 2024. She asked who the Government is considering for the new role of Jobs-Skills Integrators to ensure that training leads to better job prospects. Ms Ang also pointed to the ongoing question of whether Singapore has too many foreign workers. She offered three recommendations - do more to attract locals to job roles at or higher than S-Pass and Employment Pass qualifying salary levels, and if there are no takers, find out why; make work environments and conditions more attractive to locals; and find the right balance between capital and local and foreign labour for individual sectors, and perhaps work out some re-balancing of foreign quota needs. Ms Ang said more businesses now recognise that they have to drive transformation, but many are still less prepared to prioritise innovation and sustainability. She said there is an urgent need to speed up the participation of SMEs in the green economy so that they do not get left behind.